Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)

One of the icons of twentieth century thinking has passed away. Jacques Derrida is often seen as the founder of deconstruction, a way of reading through the text, breaking it down in pieces and reveal hidden meanings in it. His principles have been applied not only in philosophy, but also in linguistics and even law.
There is a rather interesting difference between the European (French) and American (Anglo-Saxon) understanding of Derrida. The English-speaking world has made deconstruction into a method to discover incompleteness and incoherence in a text and write a critique, whereas Derrida's first and foremost reason behind deconstruction was therapeutic. It reveals blind spots and contradictions in the text, but doesn't give a solution for these. It opens our eyes for the tension between the overt meaning of the text and what it doesn't say but which is given nonetheless.

• More info on the Anglo-Saxon understanding of Derrida can be found in this entry on Planned Obsolescence.
  
  
• The importance of Derrida for continental philosophy in Le Monde (in French).
  
  
• Another nice entry can be found over at Cup of Chicha.

Thanks to p-trick for pointing out some mistakes in this entry.